The story of discovery and naming of this element began with Carl Gustav Mosander splitting old yttria into three new elements, yttria proper, erbia, and terbia (see the special Rare Earths page).

In 1860 the Swedish chemist Nils Johan Berlin (1812-1891) denied the existence of Mosanderís erbia, and gave this name to his terbia. In 1878 Marignac split Berlin's terbia in two new earths, terbia proper and ytterbia. Then Marignac's ytterbia, in turn, was split by Nilson in 1879 into scandia and a new ytterbia.

Finally, Nilson's ytterbia was separated by Georges Urbain (1872-1938) in 1907 into neoytterbia and lutecia, with the elements Neoytterbium and Lutecium(note). Urbain named the element after Lutetia Parisorum, the Latin name for Paris:

Auer von Welsbach proposed for these elements the names Aldebaranium and Cassiopeium. (The variant name Celtium, found in some sources, is an error, cf. Hafnium). In the report of the International Commission on Atomic Weights of 1906 it was mentioned that Urbain and Auer had independently proved that the old Ytterbium was a mixture of two elements, for one of which Urbain had suggested, and the Commission approved, the name Lutecium. In 1949 the official IUPAC spelling was altered in Lutetium(note).

Lutetia

Lutetia (sometimes Lutetia Parisiorum or Lukotekia before, in French Lutèce) was a town in pre-Roman and Roman Gaul. The Gallo-Roman city was a forerunner of the re-established Merovingian town that is the ancestor of present-day Paris. Lutetia and Paris have little in common save their position where an island, the Île de la Cité, created a convenient ford of the Seine.

Somewhere in the immediate area was the chief settlement or oppidum of the Parisii, a Gallic people who settled in the area during the 3rd century BCE. However, dendrochronological study of wooden pilings beneath the lowest stratum of the Roman north-south axis date the road's construction after 4 CE, more than fifty years after the Roman pacification of the region.

Roman Lutetia was founded above the flood-prone point where the Bièvre stream reaches the river Seine, centered on the slopes of the hill later dedicated to Saint Genevieve, on the left bank of the Seine (modern-day Latin Quarter). There were outlying suburbs on an island across from the confluence, the Île de la Cité, which was the Merovingian and modern centre of Paris.